Emiel writes about the preparations for his trip. This post was originall published on the Edinburgh Conservation Science website.

I last wrote having just returned from Cambodia, and I write now as I’m preparing to return there. A lot has happened in the meantime.

Confirmation

Before I go, there is one formal hurdle I need to clear – the confirmation process. This is a sort of checkpoint I need to complete approximately 9 months into my PhD, in order to be ‘confirmed’ by the university. The process has three steps: Last week I gave a short presentation to my peers and academics in our department at an internal conference. It was the first real chance to explain to colleagues what I’ve been doing and what I want to do in the course of my PhD, and to hear about what others are doing. It was also a useful chance to get some feedback from everyone. I then expanded on this in my ‘confirmation report’ – a 26 page document (excluding appendices) giving more details about the background and reasoning for my research, setting out my research aims and describing how I’m going to answer these questions. I submitted the report to my advisor earlier this week and next will be my ‘confirmation panel’, where a small group of academics will question me about the report and provide feedback. Not only does the university use this to make sure us students are on the right track and capable of completing a PhD, but it should also be an invaluable opportunity to get some input from experts who aren’t directly involved with my project.

Writing a paper

Before focusing on the confirmation report I took some time to draft what will hopefully be the first paper of my PhD. What I’m studying – information flows – is quite a new concept in conservation, although other fields, such as public health, have been looking at it for a while. One of my objectives is to say why we need to think about this and try some of the methods from other disciplines in a conservation context. To start this off I’m writing a sort of ‘opinion piece’ describing what it’s all about and why it’s important, and suggesting some of the ways that the issue could be addressed and why it might be different in conservation than elsewhere. This is a really fun exercise (in a nerdy sort of way) because it’s let me read widely and take time to really think about the concepts involved and how they relate.

Fieldwork

In the background to all of this I have been thinking ahead to my first data-collection campaign. The past few months have been fascinating, and I feel like I’ve made progress, but fieldwork will produce the first tangible results. It will also be a significant investment. As such, I’m excited to get into the action, but I also feel a responsibility to make the right decisions. Through discussions with my supervisors and the team at WCS the plans have slowly been evolving and taking shape. At the same time there is a lot of practical/logistical stuff to think about – money, timing, transport. Most tricky of all is finding the right people, Cambodian students, to work with me as assistants.

I expect the next time I write will be from Phnom Penh